CHECK THE RECORD

After George Floyd’s Death, Klobuchar Faces Scrutiny Over Record on Police Brutality

The Minnesota senator served as district attorney while Derek Chauvin racked up complaints.

Amy Klobuchar, who served as a district attorney before becoming a Democratic senator for Minnesota, is facing scrutiny over her record overseeing police brutality cases in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody. Derek Chauvin, the officer who kneeled on George Floyd’s neck for several minutes before he died, received at least 10 complaints about his conduct during his 19-year career with city law enforcement. He was fired Tuesday.

In 2006, Chauvin was involved in a shooting, and Klobuchar declined to bring charges at that time, according to The Week. But according to a statement sent out by the office of current Hennepin County DA Mike Freeman, “all prosecutorial decisions were made under the direction of Mike Freeman.” By the time the case came to prosecution, Klobuchar had already moved on to the Senate, according to her office. The case proceeded to a grand jury, which in 2008 declined to bring charges.

In other cases of police brutality, relatives of victims asked Klobuchar to bring charges instead of passing the cases to grand juries, whose proceedings are not public, but she declined. Ira Toles, a Minneapolis resident, told The Daily Beast that Chauvin was the same officer who “tried to kill me” during a domestic violence call in 2008. Chauvin shot Toles and left a permanent hole in his stomach.